Reviews, January 2017

The Lottery and Other Stories —
Shirley Jackson

1949’s
The
Lottery and Other Stories
is
a collection of short pieces by Shirley Jackson. Aside from
The
Haunting of Hill House,
there’s
a giant Jackson-sized hole in my reading. When
I saw how inexpensive
The
Lottery
ebook was, I snapped it up. Time spent in various waiting rooms allowed me
the leisure to actually read it.

There
are twenty-five pieces in this book. I am not going to do my usual
story by story approach; cue sighs of relief all round.

The Gods of Xuma or Barsoom Revisited —
David J. Lake
Breakout, book 4

[due to a technical issue, this is unedited]

1978’s
The
Gods of Xuma or Barsoom Revisited is
the fourth book in David J. Lake’s Breakout
series1.
Readers intrigued by my review need not worry if they have not read
the first three books; not only does Gods
function
as a standalone, good luck finding a copy. Many authors benefited
from the golden age of ebook reprints but the late Mr. Lake does not
appear to have been one of them.

The
stars are ours! Well, the Moon is ours (albeit at the cost of World
Wars Three and Four largely depopulating the Earth but eggs and
omelettes), not that the Russians, Americans and Chinese like sharing
that world with each other. The stalwarts of the Euro-American moon
base have every hope Operation Breakout will plant Euro-Americans on
the worlds of 82 Eridani, Epsilon Eridani and Delta Pavonis.

The
unfortunates sent to Epsilon Eridani found only airless rocks and the
Delta Pavonis ship has yet to report its findings but in 2143,
starship Riverhorse
hits
the jackpot. 82 Eridani 3 is small but habitable, the Mars ours solar
system never had. Linguist
Tom Carson favours the name “Barsoom”, after Edgar Rice Burroughs
but humourless Captain Mannheim insists on Ares. Whatever the planet
is called, it is clearly life-bearing, a potential home for humanity.

A Wizard’s Henchman —
Matthew Hughes
Kaslo Chronicles, book 1

British-born
Canadian Matthew Hughes has lived in many places. One of them was
Kitchener-Waterloo, which earns him a spot in A
Year of Waterloo Region Speculative Fiction. Hughes
writes
in a wide range of genres, both non-fiction and fiction. To quote
from his site, he has been employed as

a journalist, then as a staff speechwriter to the Canadian Ministers
of Justice and Environment, and — from 1979 until a few years back
— as a freelance corporate and political speechwriter in British
Columbia.

He
also writes science fiction and fantasy, as well as mystery. He has
won the

Despite
these accolades, Hughes is often overlooked. It’s inexplicable,
although his tendency towards humour may explain some of it. Humorous
F&SF, save of the broadest, least subtle sort, is generally not
popular in North America. Perhaps this work, which is more
apocalyptic than
funny,
will appeal to a broader range of readers.

2016’s
A
Wizard’s Henchman is
the first volume in Matthew Hughes’ KasloChronicles.

There
are ten thousand inhabited worlds in the Spray and none of them are
utopias. Problems abound. Erm Kaslo has made a very nice living for
himself as an all-round troubleshooter for rich men who are able to
pay well for services rendered. The rich and powerful don’t get
that way by being ethical or trustworthy—but even the most ruthless
learn that it’s never a good idea to disappoint Erm Kaslo.

Hammers on Bone —
Cassandra Khaw
Persons Non Grata, book 1

2016’s
Hammers
on Bone is
the first work in Cassandra
Khaw’s Persons
Non Grata series.

The
sign on his door says “John Persons, PI”. It doesn’t say “John
Persons, Killer for Hire.” Abel, the kid currently on the other
side of Persons desk, wants a killer, someone who will deal with his
stepdad McKinsey before the stepdad can kill Abel and his brother James.

Persons
has killed, but only in self-defence. Just like any other completely
normal person. Persons is trying very hard to be a normal person.
Abel is convinced that there’s more to Persons than meets the eye and he’s a very persuasive kid.
Persons agrees to take a look at the stepdad and proceed as seems … ethical.

A
faint mewling voice in the back of Persons’ head thinks that this
is the right choice.

Tomoe’s Story —
Stan Sakai
Usagi Yojimbo, book 22

Tomoe’s
Story is the 22nd volume in Stan Sakai’s long-running Usagi
Yojimbo anthropomorphic comic series. It collects six stories featuring
Tomoe, a feline woman samurai, who keeps crossing paths with Miyamoto
Usagi. Unlike other friends/allies, such as morally unencumbered Gen
and ostentatious jerk Inukai, Usagi and Tomoe share many moral
perspectives, but their friendship is not without its complications.

Crosstalk —
Connie Willis

Connie
Willis’ 2016
Crosstalk is a standalone near-future SF novel. I regret to inform my readers
that this review may not be as enjoyably vitriolic as previous Willis
reviews. (I may revisit that decision once
Crosstalk gets its inevitable, inexplicable Hugo nomination.) As Willis novels
go, I didn’t hate it all that much.

In
the exciting world of Tomorrow CE, couples are not limited to
intrusive social media and ever-present electronic communications.
Now there’s the option of the EED, a device that creates an
empathic link between lovebirds. Or at least, it’s supposed to.

Pressured
into submitting to elective brain surgery by her loving fiancé
Trent, Briddey Flannigan gets an EED. Alas! there is no sign of the
empathic link that should have formed between Briddey and Trent. What
Briddey got was…

Judgment Night —
C.L. Moore

C.
L. Moore’s short novel Judgment
Night was serialized in two issues of John W. Campbell’s Astounding back in 1943. Judgment
Night is also the title of a collection published by Dell back in the Disco
Era (which is how I encountered the story) .. but the edition I have
in hand is Diversion Books’ 2015 ebook. They’ve presented the
novel as a standalone—which it is. Not only are there no sequels of
which I am aware, it’s not clear to me how there could be.

The
race that holds Ericon holds the galaxy, because the race that holds
Ericon can draw on the wisdom of the Ancients. Access to the Ancients
does not mean that one will be able to put their wisdom to effective
use. In fact, dynasty after dynasty have interpreted the advice they
were given in ways that led to their doom. All human governments are
as mortal (if not so short-lived) as their members.

The Untold Tale —
J. M. Frey
Accidental Turn, book 1

To
quote the bio in her novel:

(J. M. Frey) is a
voice actor, SF/F author, professionally trained music theatre
performer, not-so-trained but nonetheless enthusiastic screenwriter
and webseries-ist, and a fanthropologist and pop culture scholar.
She’s appeared in podcasts, documentaries, radio programs, and on
television to discuss all things geeky through the lens of academia.

Frey
has been nominated for both the Aurora and the Lambda Awards.

2015’s
The
Untold Tale is
the first volume in The
Accidental Turn series.

Kintyre
Turn is a bona fide hero, complete with the magic sword Foesmiter and his very own loyal sidekick, Sir Bevel. Most damsels in distress,
at least the ones from Hain, would be relieved to get Kintyre’s
help. Lucy “Pip” Piper isn’t from Hain and she’s not at all
relieved to be rescued by Kintyre. That’s because she has to make
do with Kintyre’s much less impressive stuttering brother Forsyth.

The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe —
Kij Johnson

Although
modern discussion of Howard
Phillips Lovecraft’s fiction often focuses on his virulent
racism, he was also something of a misogynist. His female
characters tended to be absent or objectionable. Is it possible to
write in the Lovecraftian vein without racism and misogyny? Or is
Lovecraft’s world of eldritch horrors dependent on rampant hatred
of the Other?

Kij
Johnson’s 2016’s The
Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe is something of a test for the hypothesis “I can write Lovecraftian
fiction that does not reek of hatred and disgust.” It is also a
test of my recent suggestion that the most flawed originals can
inspire the best modern interpretations.

Professor
Boe is woken from a sound sleep to deal with a crisis. One of her
most promising students, Jurat, has eloped with a lover, Heller.
Heller is objectionable because he is a dreamer from the waking world
and it is to the waking world Jurat and Heller are fleeing. The
university’s toleration of Ulthar Women’s College is grudging at
best. If news gets out that the daughter of a trustee has been …
misplaced, the hard-won women’s college might be shut down entirely.

Martians Abroad —
Carrie Vaughn

Carrie
Vaughn’s 2017
Martians
Abroad
is a standalone young-adult SF novel, written in the manner of a very
famous series of juvenile SF novels. In fact, it seems to be a
response to a
specific juvenile SF novel, about which more anon.

Young
Polly Newton has a bold plan for her life, one that involves pilot
school and helming humanity’s first starship. Polly’s mother also
has bold plans for Polly and her brother Charles. Those plans involve
an unwanted sojourn at the prestigious Galileo Academy on Earth.
Polly’s plans are irrelevant. Mother knows best.

Martha
Newton didn’t become Director of the Mars Colony by being easy to
out-manoeuvre. By the time Polly learns what her mother has planned,
it is too late for either Polly or her brother to do anything about
it except pack their bags and give in to the inevitable.

The Tombs of Atuan —
Ursula K. Le Guin
Earthsea, book 2

1970’s
The
Tombs of Atuan
is
the second volume in Ursula K. Le Guin’s
Earthsea Cycle.

The
influence of the Nameless Ones has dwindled over the long ages, but
they still have power in the Tombs of Atuan. There they still are
worshipped. There they are served by their immortal Priestess.

The
little girl once named Tenar is the latest incarnation of the
Priestess. The bodies of the One Priestess of the Tombs of Atuan die,
but the Priestess lives on, reborn in a newborn body at the time of
the Priestess’ death. Stripped of her birth family and her name,
the girl who was Tenar becomes Arha, “the eaten one,” paramount
human servant of the ancient and fearsome Nameless Ones.

Shin Sekai Yori —
Yusuke Kishi

I
was so annoyed by last week’s
Translation
Review
selection (the Shin Sekai Yori manga) that I hunted down a fan translation of the novel on
which the manga was based. Should a North American publisher ever
print this or another translation, I will review that as well, with
an appropriate link. Hint, hint.

A
thousand years from now, Saki Watanabe and her schoolmates, Satoru
Asahina, Maria Akizuki, Mamoru Itou, Shun Aonuma, and Reiko Amano
think that they live in a kindly world, one in which they are
protected from danger. Fiends and karma demons cannot be current
dangers;
they are merely the stuff of summertime ghost stories.

Poor
coddled teens! They are not safe. Fiends and demons are very real.
However, the biggest dangers the children will face will be those
created by their own society and their own choices.

Ninefox Gambit —
Yoon Ha Lee
The Machineries of Empire, book 1

2016’s
Ninefox Gambit is the first volume in Yoon Ha Lee’s projected
trilogy, The
Machineries of Empire.

Success
is often punished harshly. Consider the case of Captain Kel Cheris of
Heron Company, 109-229th Battalion. She has excelled on the
battlefield due to her skill and ingenuity. Those are exactly the
qualities her superiors need if they are to retake the Fortress of
Scattered Needles from the rebels who currently hold it.

Survival Rout —
Ana Mardoll
Earthside, book 2

College
roommates Aniyah and Miyuki expect a summer vacation rich in
opportunities for hanging out and having intense discussions about
gender and orientation. Thanks to their ever-so-helpful chums Timothy
and Craig, what they actually get is kidnapped, mindwiped, and sold
to the faerie lord Master of Masques.

Keoki
is in the wrong place at the wrong time; his good Samaritan instincts
get him abducted and sold as well.

Mindbridge —
Joe Haldeman

Haldeman’s
first novel under his own name1,
a fix-up titled The
Forever War,
won
a Hugo, a Nebula, a Ditmar, and a Locus. There’s something to said
for not winning that many awards the first time out, because it’s
hard to go anywhere but down from such initial success. After that, a
single Hugo nomination (something that would normally seem a
boast-worthy success—assuming, of course, that this did not result
from inclusion on a Puppy slate) will seem like a comparative failure.

Which
brings us to Joe Haldeman’s 1976 standalone Mindbridge,
his second novel as Haldeman.

By
the mid-21 century, Earth is a garden world, an artificial Eden for
eleven billion humans. This idyll is dependent on complex technology,
and on the solar power that drives that technology. If anything were
to disrupt the system, billions would die.

The
Levant-Meyer Translation (LMT) providentially offers humanity an
off-site back-up. But there’s a catch. Several catches, in fact.

After Atlas —
Emma Newman
Planetfall, book 2

Emma
Newman’s 2016
After
Atlas
is
a sequel to her 2015 novel
Planetfall.

The
Pathfinder, Lee Suh-Mi, led her people to a glorious destiny among
the stars. The Pathfinder’s starship only had room for the chosen
few. Carlos Moreno’s mother made the cut, but Carlos and his father
did not. His father then joined a community of starship rejectees,
one led by a Lee deputy named Alejandro Casales, dragging an unhappy
young Carlos in his wake. It took years for Carlos to escape.

Decades
later, Carlos is a prized asset of the Noropean Ministry of Justice.
He is a talented investigator whose indentured status ensures that
his efforts on the MOJ’s behalf will not be sabotaged by nonsense
like so-called human rights.

The Adolescence of P-1 —
Thomas J. Ryan

The
Adolescence of P-1 is
the first and (so far as I know) only work of science fiction by Thomas J. Ryan. Ryan is an enigmatic
author about whom little is known. His middle name was Joseph and he
was born in 1942; if he has died, that fact is not known to my
sources. There is one other fact about Ryan that one can easily
deduce from this novel: he was very familiar with the University of
Waterloo as it existed in the early 1970s. His book was the first SF
novel I had ever read that drew on places and institutions I found
cosily familiar.

Our
protagonist is Gregory Burgess, a student at the University of
Waterloo, majoring in Honours Getting Laid, with a minor in Keeping
His Marks Just High Enough to Avoid Expulsion. His indifference to
hard study vanished when he first encountered a book on computer
programming. Girls were forgotten as Burgess honed his hacking skills
and began to amass files and resources to which he was not remotely
entitled. He was talented, but not quite talented enough: UW spotted
and expelled him.

Yusuke Kishi
Shin Sekai Yori, book 1

I
had no idea what to review this week … so I left it to chance.
Manga Fox’s
surprise
me
option handed me the manga adaptation of Yusuke
Kishi
’s
2008
Nihon
SF Taisho Award-winning novel
Shin
Sekai Yori
(From
the New World
). If there exists a translation of the novel, I am unaware of it.
That’s too bad, because the sense I get from the manga is that the
novel is an interesting work poorly served by its adaptation into a
new medium.

The Stars Are Legion —
Kameron Hurley

Kameron
Hurley’s 2017’s The
Star Are Legion is a standalone space opera.

In
a distant future, a flock of huge world-ships orbit an unnamed star.
Within the ships, there are life forms of all kinds, including
humans. But every living thing has its allotted span and the
world-ships are no exception. They are dying and when they do die, so
too will all the humans who live within them.

Zan
and Jayd have a cunning plan to escape the coming mass extinction.
The cost of the plan will be much greater than they expect.

Up The Line —
Robert Silverberg

Robert
Silverberg is a fascinating figure. His career as a science fiction
writer spans over six decades and comprises at least three distinct periods:

his
early, prolific pulp phase, during which he put more emphasis on
speed1 than polish;

a
middle period, when he reinvented himself as an ambitious literary
SF author;

the
most recent period, more polished than the first and more commercial
than the second.

I
discovered him while he was writing classics like Dying
Inside,To
Live Again, and
Downward
to Earth. To me, it’s the serious, ambitious work from the mid-1960s to the
mid-1970s that is ineluctably Silverberg.

Of
course the first book of his I am going to review is his 1969
time-travel sex comedy, Up
the Line.
That’s because if There Will Be Timewasn’t the SF novel that revealed to me that Byzantium existed, Up
The Line very definitely was. Paired review, remember?

There Will Be Time —
Poul Anderson

Today’s
Because My Tears Are Delicious to You Review is a very special
double
review!
And
not because I want to bump up my stats. The two books I have selected
are a pair of thematically related but very different novels that I
will re-read back to back. Because
There
Will Be Time
was on the top of the stack “Anderson” comes before “Silverberg,” I will start the
re-read with Mr. Anderson’s novel.

1972’s
Hugo-nominated
There
Will Be Time
is
the book that convinced teenage me that I liked his fiction. It is
part of Poul Anderson’s
Maurai
series,
which included three novelettes (1959’s
The
Sky People
,
1962’s
Progress
and
1973’s
Windmill)
as well as a second novel, 1983’s
Orion
Shall Rise.

Centuries
after the Judgment War, the Maurai dominated the Earth, guiding other
nations away from destructive machine culture and towards more
sustainable ways of life.
There
Will Be Time
begins
some time before this golden age, in 1933, with the birth of Jack
Havig, an American who will play a very curious role in the history
of the Maurai.